The Taste of Ashes
by SesshyLover132
Summary: When Draco was fourteen, he faced the reality of his mother's "food allergies" as she dwindled away into skin and bones. At eighteen he is conflicted and hyper-aware of his own changing body, forcing him to confront his own dining demons. If only he hadn't discovered a spell designed to make everything taste like ashes. BEWARE OF TRIGGERS. ANOREXIA PRESENT. READ WARNINGS.


**Disclaimer: I do not own these characters; they belong to J. K. Rowling.**

 **WARNING: THIS STORY CONTAINS CERTAIN TRIGGERS; IF YOU ARE UNCOMFORTABLE READING ABOUT ANOREXIA OR THINK THAT IT COULD CAUSE A TRIGGER WITHIN YOURSELF, DO NOT READ.**

 **NOTE: THERE ARE INSTANCES WITHIN THIS FANFICTION THAT DO NOT CORRELATE WITH THE ACTUAL STORY LINE OF HARRY POTTER.**

The Taste of Ashes

When Draco was seven years old, he consumed _la_ _crème glacée_ on a daily basis. The house elves of Malfoy Manor were fully aware of his preferences for the frozen treat and prepared it with the utmost care after every dinner, with a special bit of extra chocolate on the Saturdays that his mother shared his delicacy.

His _crème glacée_ was served in two full scoops, topped with the perfect amount of drizzled chocolate and caramel; presented in a miniature goblet of stunning platinum, Draco vividly remembers digging into the ice cream and the ambrosia that followed…along with the reprimanding from his father for his inadequate table manners. His father ate with the perfect amount of precision – everything was cut with precise movements, eaten with precise movements, and no amount of energy was wasted upon the actions. His mother, on the other hand, ate with a delicate hand – small bites were eaten slowly and each bite was followed with a graceful and dignified pat of a dinner napkin.

When Draco was eleven years old, he attended Hogwarts School of Witch Craft and Wizardry for the first time. Here, the house elves presented the children with mounds upon mounds of scrumptious food (not nearly on par with the Malfoy house elves, but it would have to do) and he ate with a well-mannered gusto equivalent to the Malfoy heir. Holiday Feasts at the castle were also grand – it allowed Draco to indulge in a variety of foods that were forbidden at the Manor (due to his mother's food allergies and the Malfoy tradition of serving only the finest of delicacies for Christmas and Boxing Day). The Slytherin table sat at the far left corner of the Great Hall, presenting Draco with the perfect view of the other three houses and the staff table at the front of the Hall.

Throughout his next few years at Hogwarts, Draco spent a vast majority of his time within the Great Hall observing the dietary habits of his classmates. It allowed him to eat at an acceptable pace while also providing him with potentially useful information (one never knew when they would need to know what foods a person truly enjoyed…or truly despised).

Crabbe and Goyle ate at a fast pace, as if they had never tasted anything as good as the food plated in front of them; they also snacked _a lot_. However, their bodies were much bulkier than Draco's and they were quite a bit more equipped for intimidation. Draco's body was lithe and lean with long limbs, appendages, and aristocratic features that were perfectly combined from his mother and father. Goyle hated carrots and Crabbe absolutely detested pumpkin juice and green beans.

Pansy ate in a similar way to his mother, though not nearly as refined and she didn't dab at her face in the way that his mother did and only used her napkin when some manner of crumb or morsel made its way onto her pug-like features. She hated treacle tart, but was completely enamored with chocolate tart and whipped cream.

Blaise ate depending upon his mood – there were times when he ate with a certain amount of dignity and other times that he ate in a manner similar to Crabbe and Goyle. He despised beets and sprouts, but loved all types of jellies and jams; breakfast, in fact, seemed to be his favorite meal.

After Draco grew tired of watching his friends dine, he moved on to the Gryffindor table and – along with it – the boy wonder himself. It was at this time that Draco began to notice something peculiar about the boy-who-lived. At the beginning of the school year, Potter always ate as if he were starved – food couldn't seem to make its way to his mouth fast enough and pumpkin juice was swallowed with a relish that Draco could only attribute to his childhood consumption of _la_ _crème glacée_. By Halloween, though, Potter's eating habits slacked off and he ate much more slowly and enjoyed his meal times. However, by the end of the school year, Potter ate each bite with a look of sadness and seemed to savor every morsel. Draco began to wonder if the food Potter's relatives served him tasted awful in comparison to Wizarding food; they were muggles, after all.

When Draco was fourteen, he began to notice how frail his mother had come to be – her limbs were long, slender to the point of bony, and she'd taken to wearing robes with long sleeves even in the summer. The Manor, she claimed, was too cold for her even in the heat of summer; the house elves were clearly applying too many cooling charms to the rooms and floors, she complained to him when he asked about her attire one morning over tea. Out of habit, Draco had continued to observe her eating habits – her portions had grown smaller, her face was thinner, and her napkin diligently dabbed at her curved mouth after every small morsel.

Worried, he had knocked upon the door to his father's study after tea and begged his father to tell him if his mother was sick or dying. His father laughed, cruelly he might add, and simply stated that she'd taken it upon herself to be Lady Malfoy and, with it, certain appearances must be kept. Confused, Draco had asked his father what he meant – hadn't Draco ever wondered why his mother dabbed at her mouth so often? Hadn't he ever wondered why she never seemed to chew her food? Why it simply seemed to disappear between forkfuls?

Taken aback, Draco realized that all along his mother hadn't been consuming the food that she'd placed in her mouth – she'd been getting rid of it with the napkin after each bite was taken. When Draco had asked why she'd do such a thing, his father had simply given him the stoic look that followed every question his father deemed childish and sent him out of his study. It was on this day that Draco realized that his mother did not likely suffer from food allergies of any kind.

When Draco was fifteen, he realized that his mother's napkin was enchanted so that the food vanished the moment that it came into contact with the silky fabric. He also realized that his mother was frail to the point of being skeletal, her body far past the point of trim and bordering on starvation. He didn't understand why his mother didn't allow herself the food that she so desperately needed, but he also couldn't bring himself to ask her why she didn't eat – he didn't know if he wanted the answer.

When Draco was seventeen (bordering eighteen), the Dark Lord was vanquished and his family was in shambles. His father was carted to Azkaban and sentenced to twenty or more years within the prison – equal to the amount of years that he'd spent as a death eater for the Dark Lord. His mother and himself were granted their freedom and sentenced to house arrest for two years; however, to his utter astonishment and gratitude, he was allowed to finish his education at Hogwarts as long as he reported weekly to the headmistress and his head of house. It was during this time that Draco realized that he could no longer hate Harry Potter; it was only fair to be nice to the man that had spared him life in Azkaban, after all.

When Draco was fitted for his robes for his last and final year at Hogwarts, he was forced to floo to France and be tailored by Monsieur Michele because of the animosity that now resided between his family and Madam Malkin. As a Death Eater, Draco began to realize exactly how much privilege his father had cost the Malfoy family because of his loyalty to the Dark Lord. It was also during this time that Draco was confronted with a horrid reality.

* * *

"Well, well, Mr. Malfoy," Monsieur Michele murmured, "you've grown out of last year's robes already, have you?" His wand flicked lazily toward the measuring tape, note pad, and quill sitting on the stool next to him.

"Of course, I have," Draco sneered, "I've only just reached eighteen, I'm fairly certain that I'll grow even taller before the end of this year as well."

Monsieur Michele hummed lowly and continued to work in tandem with his enchanted tape, voicing aloud the measurements that were scribbled automatically by the quill. "Ah ah ah," he murmured to the quill, "make a note to include the charm on the waist band of young Mr. Malfoy's trousers."

"A charm for my trousers?" Draco inquired, "a protective charm?" It was perfectly normal for wizarding robes to include charms, but Madam Malkin had never told him of any sort of charm for his school trousers – beyond the charms were already within the fabric to spell them against stains, of course.

Monsieur Michele chuckled, "not entirely, no." He continued to work silently for a moment and then flicked his wand to stop the enchanted tools, "it has come to my attention with many of my students that it is around this time of schooling that they start to grow bigger here," he gestured to Draco's midsection, "while they stop growing here and here," he gestured fluidly to Draco's height. "It is usually due to a decrease in outdoor activity coupled with an increase in indoor studying," he winked at Draco, "not that you've got anything to worry about, I think, but I always add the charm, just in case. There's no point in ruining such exemplary clothing with ill-used expansion charms and what not, no?"

Draco nodded, lost in thought and glanced down at his stomach. Had it grown since he'd looked at it last?

* * *

When Draco started his eighth year of Hogwarts, he decided that the food within the Great Hall wasn't that great after all.

Everything was too sweet, too bland, too buttery…nothing fresh and not laden with oil or sugar presented itself to his silver orbs, leaving him at a loss for what he should consume for lunch and dinner. Breakfast, at least, held a variety of freshly picked fruits, including apples, strawberries, grapes, and the like. The fruit was tasteful or tart (depending on what he chose), but caused a rumbling and turning in his stomach that he'd never experienced before returning to Hogwarts.

Could it be that the fruit was hurting his stomach? Perhaps the acidity and juices were combining in his stomach causing a painful mixture that bloated out his belly to the size of a balloon? Looking down, Draco frowned at his sweater and the rounded area that he could see beneath the cloth. Had it been like that before he'd eaten breakfast? Or last night, when he'd forgone dinner?

He couldn't remember and that bothered him.

Shoving his plate away from him, he listened a little more intently to the conversation of his fellow eighth-year Slytherins. It wasn't much, but it served to distract him from the knotted mass in his stomach.

"Are you quite alright, Draco?" Blaise inquired, fork laden with a jelly filled tart only served by the house elves on Sunday mornings. "You've barely touched your food and you've been staring blankly at Potter for the past ten minutes."

Startled, Draco realized that he had, in fact, been staring at the back of Potter's head for the last ten minutes or so. Likely, it was because Potter had decided to switch his seat at the Gryffindor table for an unknown reason; usually, the boy-wonder sat facing the Malfoy heir next to the Weasel and Granger sat on the opposite side of the long table, flanked by the she-weasel and Longbottom. Today, though, he'd taken the seat beside the she-weasel, leaving Granger and the Weasel to cuddle up and stare at each other with stars in their eyes in front of the entire Great Hall.

"I'm perfectly fine, Blaise." Draco huffed, "I'm just admiring how scarhead's hair has gone from an owl's nest to the equivalent to what I expect a Troll's bed looks like." Blaise smirked and chuckled, a suspicious glint in his dark eyes, but he let the matter drop and continued eating his tart.

Draco decided that he wasn't that hungry during lunch…or dinner, the bloating in his abdomen had only gotten worse and the knot in his stomach now felt like two Hungarian Horntails fighting and clawing at his insides. Tired, he'd gone to bed with the thought that his pajama top felt oddly tight in his hip and stomach region.

The next morning, a miracle had happened: the bloating was gone! Draco felt glorious, radiant, as if he could take on the entirety on the Tri-Wizard tournament and come out of it completely unscathed. The fruit, apparently, had been the problem and Draco vowed to never touch the offending rubbish ever again.

 **A/N: Hello, All! It has been an astonishingly long time since I've written anything. The reason for this story has quite a bit to do with personal healing – anorexia and I are close relations, you see. I don't want anyone to find this story offensive and, moreover, I want the reality of anorexia to be the antagonist of this story while also (hopefully) aiding myself during my own recovery.**

 **A/N: This story will likely be a two-to-three part series. I was going to finish it all at once in a long one-shot, but it takes quite a bit for me to churn out much of anything anymore, so I'm hoping that any reviews that I receive will encourage me to continue on!**

 **–SesshyLover132**


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